The meteoric rise of geriatric1927

If you blinked, you missed it. It was early August when geriatric1927 posted his first video to YouTube; in the next three days he followed up with three more video posts. YouTube viewers loved him. They reacted in unprecedented fashion, sending him thousands of comments and posting dozens of video replies. In a little over one week, geriatric1927 had become YouTube’s most-subscribed video channel. He was an instant YouTube star.

Who is this phenomenon? A lip-synching college student? A high school kid with a light saber? A guy with a toilet-flushing cat?

His real name is Peter; he’s a modest, soft-spoken 79-year-old widower from England. He served as a radar mechanic during World War II, and is currently a pensioner living alone in an unnamed English city. He loves motorcycles, which make frequent appearances in his productions, and the blues, which can be heard wailing in the introductions to some of his videos.

Peter’s first video was a simple two-minute introduction in which he stated his intention to “bitch and grumble about life in general. ” He followed that with commentary on current events and YouTube happenings. In response to questions from YouTube users, he then started a series of videos that I find to be far and away his most engaging and fascinating efforts: an autobiographical series called “Telling it All.” In this series, he talks about his first motorcycle, his induction into the armed services, life during wartime and his experiences at university.

In the two weeks since Peter’s rise to the top of YouTube, he has received worldwide attention. He has been featured on the BBC. His story was picked up by Reuters and ZDNet. Amanda Congdon, formerly of RocketBoom, has blogged about him. Sarah Viren wrote about Peter on the Chronicle’s School Zone blog. His fans even created an entry for him at Wikipedia. One of his videos suggests that he is being inundated with interview requests from TV and news reporters, but Peter says he is only interesting in talking to other YouTubers.

He is now alone at the top of the YouTube heap. His 24,230 subscribers are about a third more than second place. His first video has been seen 1,770,605 times. His 12 “Telling it All” series videos average in the tens of thousands of views each. With his popularity have come more substantial benefits: the friendship of many other YouTube users. In his most recent video, Peter proclaims himself the “Luckiest old man in the world.”

Peter’s videos succeed because they are fascinating. Personal stories and anecdotes are simply the most interesting content we can produce. I would rather read Leon Hale than George F Will any day of the week. I would much rather listen to Baxter Black, Bailey White, or, in his day, Red Barber on NPR than news or political commentary. And when a man’s stories are set against a significant historical context such as World War II, they’re even more interesting. What makes Peter such an engaging video-blogger, though, is that what you see is what you get. He is warm, honest, and unpretentious.

Long may he blog.

Update: Dwight wrote to ask why I didn’t embed the videos. Good question. Here, then, are two videos by Peter of the UK:

Peter’s introductory video, viewed over 1.7 million times:

“Telling it All” part 1, the first of Peter’s autobiographical series:

3 Responses

this mans story sounds very much like the life of the man as played by anthony hopkins in the recent movie, “the worlds fastest indian”. the character was from australia rather than england . the reference to indian was not the ethnic term but to the indian motorcycle which he repaired and built.

Itzme makes a BIG error in his/her comment 29 August by claiming Burt Munro, riding the world’s fastest Indian motorbike, was Australian. Geography! He was a New Zealander, and so is Roger Donaldson, who made the film.